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Category: food – Page 147

Better Farming Through Electricity

Chinese researchers are reporting that applying an electric field to pea plants increased yields. This process — known as electroculture — has been tested multiple times, but in each case there are irregularities in the scientific process, so there is still an opportunity for controlled research to produce meaningful data.

This recent research used two plots of peas planted from the same pods. The plants were tended identically except one plot was stimulated by an electric field. The yield on the stimulated plot was about 20% more than the control plot.

The actual paper is paywalled in the journal Nature Food, but the idea seems simple enough. If you search for the topic, you’ll find there have been other studies with similar findings. There are also anecdotal reports of electrical plant stimulation going back to 1746.

How Gut Microbe Symbiosis Helps Squirrels Keep Their Muscles During Hibernation

Ground squirrels spend the end of summer gorging on food, preparing for hibernation. They need to store a lot of energy as fat, which becomes their primary fuel source underground in their hibernation burrows all winter long.

While hibernating, ground squirrels enter a state called torpor. Their metabolism drops to as low as just 1 percent of summer levels and their body temperature can plummet to close to freezing. Torpor greatly reduces how much energy the animal needs to stay alive until springtime.

That long fast comes with a downside: no new input of protein, which is crucial to maintain the body’s tissues and organs. This is a particular problem for muscles.

This 70-year-old woman claims she looks like she’s 28 because she doesn’t eat sugar

Carolyn Hartz, a 70-year-old woman, was like most individuals on the planet. She couldn’t get enough of sweets. And she wasn’t afraid to gorge herself on desserts for four decades. But then she made the decision to make a substantial lifestyle shift. She also made the decision to eliminate all processed sugar from her diet.

Today, three decades later, Carolyn appears to be much younger than she has ever been. She has a fantastic physique that many women all over the world would lust over. Even at her advanced age, she has the confidence to go to the beach in a bikini like any other young lady. Her skin also appears to be in excellent condition.

It’s all because she made the decision to change her lifestyle choices, she claims. She believes that it is never too late to change one’s life. All you have to do is make the decision to improve your life.

New biodegradable straws are made by bacteria

New biodegradable straws developed in China are as cheap as plastic, stronger than paper, and made from edible materials — but can they make a difference in the global plastic waste problem?

Plastic everywhere: People produce 330 million tons of plastic every year. Less than 9% of it is recycled, and about 12% is incinerated — the rest ends up polluting our natural environment or languishing in landfills.

About half of this plastic is in disposable products — bags, straws, etc. Because these products are disposable, they’re also cheap, so any equally disposable but more sustainable alternatives are going to need to be cheap, too — and similar quality.

German town goes self-sufficient with wind and green hydrogen

The innovative project Green H2-Hub Haren in the Emsland region in northern Germany uses H-Tec Systems electrolysers for sector integration.

The Green H2-Hub Haren project in Haren in Lower Saxony, northern Germany uses two electrolysers from H-Tec Systems. This was announced by project leader CEC Haren GmbH & Co. KG and electrolyser manufacturer H-Tec Systems. The order was placed with H-Tec Systems by the electricity and gas distribution network operator Westnetz. This research and development project is intended to enable the establishment of a decentralized hydrogen facility. At the site, green hydrogen will be produced from wind energy and stored in connection with specific regional applications, primarily for the mobility sector. The H2-Hub targets various hydrogen applications in rural areas – in particular in the field of agriculture – based on the production and use of sustainably generated hydrogen. In addition, the project is intended to significantly increase the city of Haren’s rate of self-sufficiently produced renewable energy. The goal is to implement a model that will also develop and prepare a comprehensive integration of other rural locations and regions in Lower Saxony into the H2 supply infrastructure.

The town of Haren aims to be completely self-sufficient with green energy. New storage systems as part of the H2 Hub enable a significant use of excess electricity from times of peak generation. The 16 wind turbines of the community wind farm Fehndorf-Lindloh are connected to a PEM electrolysis system, as well as an additional battery storage system in combination with a superordinate energy management system. In addition, a hydrogen filling station and a gas network feed-in point will be built. In this way, the project allows the transfer of surplus electricity to other sectors, such as heating or transport.

A key approach of sector integration in connection with renewable energies is to stabilize wind energy through PEM electrolysis with connected storage. The production of hydrogen will be realized with the help of two electrolysis systems from H-Tec Systems. This will enable new potential for the utilization of this energy in the form of power-to-gas or power-to-fuel.

Proposals could give South Bend one of the largest indoor farming campuses in the Midwest

SOUTH BEND — The city council gave a unanimously positive recommendation Monday night for two tax abatements that could put South Bend at the epicenter of the hydroponic produce market in Indiana, and possibly the Midwest, for years to come.

JEM Farms South Bend plans to spend as much as $178 million on greenhouses and logistical equipment to grow tomatoes and strawberries throughout the year on land at Calvert Street and Renewable Drive, adjacent to the South Bend Ethanol Plant.

That facility would be located on land owned by Ceres Partners, the agricultural investment group located just south of the University of Notre Dame campus and the original investors in Pure Green Farms.

Deep Space Food Challenge: NASA Offers $1 Million for Innovative Systems to Feed Tomorrow’s Astronauts

As NASA prepares to send astronauts further into the cosmos than ever before, the agency aims to upgrade production of a critical fuel source: food. Giving future explorers the technology to produce nutritious, tasty, and satisfying meals on long-duration space missions will give them the energy required to uncover the great unknown.

VTT’s innovation delivers heat where it’s needed

The heat-producing electronic components are printed on a substrate material with a method known as roll-to-roll processing. The 0.05-millimetre thick metal mesh can then be cut to form and installed on materials such as fabrics, paper and floor laminates without any additional support layers and without significantly affecting the properties of the material – be it elasticity or breathability.

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has unveiled a thin and flexible precision heater suitable not only for indoor environments, but also for food packaging and clinical surfaces.